DOVER’S DEEP SHELTERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21836, 13 December 1940, Page 4

DOVER’S DEEP SHELTERS

LINK WITH NAPOLEON (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, October 12. People in a Dover suburb owe their deep air raid shelters partly to a town councillor with a long memory, and partly to Napoleon. The Town Council was discussing the provision of shelter accommodation for those people who have recently been suffering from indiscriminate bombing and shelling. The location is a hilly one and engineers had difficulty

lin deciding what form the shelters should take. ’ Major Martin, a town councillor, / remembered that in 1910, when serving as a Royal Artillery officer, his unit had used deep pits which had been dug into the hills as ammunition stores when Napoleon was threatening invasion. These pits have been sealed for i many years and were overgrown with I grass. Their very existence had been . almost forgotten. But, leading a .' working party armed with picks, Major [ i Martin .soon had them re-opened, and r they are now in use as air raid shelj ters. Each is surrounded by 20ft. of • concrete, and there is 6ft. of concrete - with another 6ft. of earth on top.